The present invention relates to generating search results and, more particularly, to generating search results for hierarchically organized data.
Many search tools are available to provide searching capability for a collection of data. For example, search tools are available to search for documents that may contain information related to a particular search criteria. Such search tools typically create an index of the words within each document. When the search criteria is received, the search tools scan the index to determine which documents contain the words of the search criteria. The search tools may also rank these documents based on various factors including the frequency of the words of the search criteria within the document or the presence of a word of the search criteria within the title of the document.
In the emerging field of electronic commerce, many thousands of products are available to be purchased electronically. For example, an online retailer may offer for sale electronic devices, major appliances, clothing, and so on. The difficulty a potential purchaser faces is identifying a particular product that satisfies the purchaser""s needs. Some online retailers provide a search tool that receives a search criteria from a potential purchaser and searches a database containing information for each of the available products to identify those products that most closely match the search criteria. For example, a potential purchaser who is interested in purchasing a television may enter the search criteria of xe2x80x9ctv.xe2x80x9d The search tool may identify every TV, but may also identify items such as video game players and VCRs that happen to use the term xe2x80x9ctvxe2x80x9d in their description fields in the database. Thus, many products that are of no interest to the potential purchaser are identified. Many potential purchasers, when faced with such a list that includes many products that are of no interest will simply shop elsewhere rather than wade through the list. Other online retailers may hierarchically organize the products so that a potential purchaser can browse through the hierarchy to identify the classification that contains products that are most likely of interest. For example, the potential purchaser may select an electronics device classification, a home electronics sub-classification, and a television sub-sub-classification. The hierarchical classification of products has several problems. First, many users of computer system do not fully understand the concept of hierarchical classifications. Thus, it is difficult for such users to use such a classification-based system. Second, products may not fall conveniently into any one classification. For example, a combination VCR and television could be classified as a VCR or a television. It is unlikely that an online retailer would have a separate classification for such a combination. Therefore, a potential purchaser may not even be able to locate the products of interest using a hierarchical classification system.
It would be desirable to have a product search technique that would combined the advantages of the search systems and the classification-based systems and that minimizes their disadvantages.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and system for querying hierarchically classified data. The system of the present invention first receives a query request. The system then identifies classifications of the data that may satisfy the received query request. The system then displays the identified classifications. In response to selection of a displayed classification, the system displays sub-classifications when the selected classification has sub-classifications and displays the data within the classification when the selected classification has no sub-classifications.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a system that generates search results for items that are hierarchically classified. For classifications within the hierarchy of classifications, the system generates a search entry containing terms describing the items within that classification. The system then receives a search criteria. The system selects as initial search results those classifications whose search entry has terms that most closely match the received search criteria. The system then adjusts the initial search results based on the hierarchy of classifications. This adjustment may include removing sub-classifications of a classification that is in the initial search results or adding a parent classification to replace multiple child classifications in the initial search results.